Ties of Ink
by Alyson Metallium
Summary: Set during the"missing" two years. He's desperately trying to forget everything connected to his past, but not all bonds are created by blood. Something as simple as a newspaper article can keep those ties alive.


Notes: Takes place during the two "missing years" time frame of both the anime and the manga. I own Trigun . . . DVD's, manga, doujinshi . . . .

##

Consciousness came to him in slow increments, something that he still couldn't quite get used to, but that didn't mean he couldn't fully enjoy it. He let out a slow, deep breath and snuggled his face into his pillow. The twin suns had been up for about an hour, something else that he wasn't fully used to yet, but he was fast coming to appreciate the ability to sleep later than what had been normal for so long.

He had just started to drift off again when he heard several exclamations from the kitchen followed by "Bernardelli". He was instantly wide-awake and moving faster than he had in the last two months.

"Eriks! Hey, Eriks! Guess what was in the newspape. . . . Eriks?"

Footsteps sounded across the room, and in moments a pair of wide, deep blue eyes peered at him.

"What are you doing under the bed?" Lina asked.

"Oh, you know, just counting the dust bunnies! Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Someone needs to keep them in line, otherwise they're going to take over the whole house!" he replied as he slid out from his impromptu hiding place. He ran a hand self-consciously through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes only to have it flop back down again. It was getting long, and he briefly considered getting a haircut but changed his mind before the thought fully formed. What did it matter if his hair got long? His old self was gone and he wouldn't be as noticeable without his signature hairstyle. He'd be able to blend in, to disappear.

"You're so weird," Lina scoffed as she kicked him lightly in the shin, and he grinned at her. The ten year old was tough and far too mature for her age, the result of being raised by her grandmother and having to help take care of her and their home when her parents had been killed in a bandit raid six years prior. But for all of her tough outer exterior, she was still a child, and had a child's enthusiasm for life and lack of patience for those who wanted to savor their lazy morning. She grabbed his wrist with an impatient "come on!" and dragged him into the kitchen, where Grandma Sheryl pulled a breakfast plate from the oven where she had been keeping it warm.

"Sorry for sleeping so long," he immediately said as guilt over how she had made him food while he had lazed away lanced through him, but the older woman scoffed.

"You hush now, Eriks, you need your sleep. You're still recovering, after all."

He briefly thought about telling her that he had "recovered" a week after they had brought him home, but kept his thoughts to himself as he shoveled scrambled eggs and toast into his mouth enthusiastically.

"What were you shouting about earlier?" he asked around a particularly large bite he had taken out of one of the donuts Sheryl always had for him, and Lina slapped him on the forearm with a sharp "manners!" as she pulled out a newspaper. Their town was small, but there were enough travelers that stopped by that the local post office tried to keep at least one newspaper from all of the major cities on hand, and sometimes the travelers themselves would leave their old newspapers behind. Lina had developed a fascination with reading about what was going on in the world, and while she was extremely happy, she also sometimes expressed interest in traveling to at least one of the big cities just to say that she had.

"Check this out!" she cried now and shoved the paper under his nose. He quickly swallowed and looked at the headline that read "Insurance Agents Foil Hijacking Attempt on the Sandsteamer _Destiny_" and beneath that was a black and white panoramic photograph of a large humpback Sandsteamer that was sitting at an angle to the photographer. His eyes immediately zeroed in on a small, almost invisible white speck that stood in front of the machine, a larger blob behind it though both were completely dwarfed by the metal at their backs.

"They're so cool!" Lina gushed, but he tuned out her babble with practiced ease as he proceeded to read. Lina had started to come up against the general prejudice that women were, in some ways, subpar to men in the harsh environment that they lived in, so she always became overly excited whenever a strong woman, or in this case, women, were featured doing something like stopping a hijacking in the male dominated world.

According to the reporter, the _Destiny_ had been half way to her destination when the Bad Lads Gang attempted to hijack it. He winced when he got to the narrative that described how BDN had rounded up the passengers in an eerie echo to another attempted hijacking, only this time he had been stopped before he could really get started by the two Bernardellie Insurance Agents, one Meryl Stryfe and her junior partner Millie Thompson. It seemed that the two had simply walked up to Neon after taking out over half of the Bad Lads that had boarded the steamer and given him an ultimatum. Amazingly, the gang leader had graciously backed down, released the hostages and disembarked as swiftly as they had appeared. The _Destiny_ had halted in the desert to make sure that all passengers were accounted for, and because they had managed to send out a distress call prior to the confrontation the marshals had converged on the location along with the reporter that wrote the story. The guy had talked to most of the witnesses (Meryl and Millie had declined an interview and vanished back into the ship shortly after the photo had been taken) and the handful that had been close enough to hear the conversation between the Insurance Agents and BDN had been puzzled over the gang leader's words. When one of his own men questioned his reasoning for abandoning the hijacking, the man had said, "Derringer Meryl and Stun Gun Millie both shine with a brightness I have no desire to try to go up against right now." There was no sign of the Bad Lads, though the Marshals swore they would search until they were found.

"Hey, Eriks, are you listening?" Lina demanded, and he looked up at her with a chagrined smile on his face.

"Sorry, Lina, what did you say?"

"I want a Stun Gun like Millie!" she exclaimed, and he shared an amused glance with Sheryl.

"You'll have to grow some muscle then, squirt," he said affectionately. "Those things are about the same size you are, there's no way you could lift it."

"I could, too!" she yelled and lunged at him. "And I'm not weak!"

"Right, right," he laughed as he held his hands up in a placating manner. She humphed, but quickly lost her initial ire when Sheryl asked them to go into town for some supplies. He cast one last look at the newspaper on the table as they exited, then shook his head as he sternly reminded himself that that part of his life was over and done.

_No need to go back there,_ he thought as he followed the girl into town. His hair flopped down into his eyes again, but this time he didn't try to push it back and just left it. After all, it made him look even more harmless and disheveled. No reason to change now.

##

End notes: This might, emphasis on might, be a series of one shots. I do have ideas, but my time is taken up with other things, hence why there's a "complete" status. But I do want to continue with this here and there because I always wanted a look into Vash's head during those two years and see if he was missing his short insurance girl as much as I hoped he was. So I decided he did, but also needed some reminders. Besides, I love the idea of Meryl and Millie having some grand adventures before returning to Bernardelli's main building.


End file.
